Drastic cut planned in local hospital care space for serious conditions

The planned Market Square neighbourhood health centre (NHC) Hub would see a drastic cut in clinical space for local hospital style (secondary) care for serious conditions.

NHS plans for NHCs show that they will have only 99.8 metres clinical space devoted to secondary care. Secondary care would share just 113 sq m of other clinical space with community services. There would be 105 square metres clinical space for diagnostics – again shared with other services. Minor injuries (or urgent treatment) would have an additional 154 square metres clinical space.

So there would be a total of just 470 square metres for ‘hospital’ services in the Hub – at the most.

That compares with 20,000 square metres for hospital services on the current hospital site. 

NHCs like the Hub will be dominated by GPs, community and mental health services.The drastic cut in accommodation for local secondary hospital services could mean patients with serious conditions travelling much more to Watford and St Albans Hospitals for care. The local numbers of such patients will grow rapidly in future as the total of over-65s increases by 20% by the late 2030s.

The figures are contained in a ‘schedule of accommodation’ for the biggest NHC, Core++. The link is below (go to Schedule of Accommodation):
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/neighbourhood-health-centres/